The Great Kitchen Catastrophe

It’s a very special smehell. I made that word up. It's a cross between 'smell' and 'hell.'

We need a new word describing what it’s like walking into your house after your refrigerator/freezer has died and been left alone. Putrid, nauseous, toxic, oh my god, and liquid death don't get it done.

Who knows how long it had been dead. It had been two weeks since we had been around.

Neighbors discovered the problem. Ours is a close-knit community; everyone knows where everyone else keeps a spare key. If you don’t have something you need but your neighbor does, go get it. That’s how this started.

I received a text that someone or something was dead in our house. “It’s not bad,” she wrote. “It’s really, really bad.”

She could have – I think I probably would have – just walked out and left it for the homeowner to figure out what was wrong. Instead, she and her husband decided to do a little investigating.

“Sniff the shower drain,” I suggested, thinking the septic tank might have a problem. By the way, you want to be pretty good friends with folks you suggest to go into your shower and sniff your drain. Profanities could follow.

Looking for any obvious problems led them to eventually opening the refrigerator door. And immediately slamming it shut. It was a morgue in there.

Actually, no. There was life.

You know how your fridge has little vents? When motors aren't running and coolants aren't cooling, those vents become doorways for small creatures, hungry for a meal of spoiled, rotting food.

There were bugs.

Among the damage, a sealed pack of chicken that had swollen up and burst through the packaging. Same for the venison. Packs of ground deer meat had all breached the seals of their vacuum-packed plastic, warming to room temperature, oozing blood.

Yogurt had burst the seals of their individual cups and grown hair. Whomp buscuits – those you whomp against the counter to open - had broken through without being whomped and were molding.

And the bugs. It may have smelled like death, but certain unidentified insects were loving life: crawling, flying and feasting.

Clearly, the refrigerator had not just conked out yesterday. Alien life forms of this magnitude take time to manifest.

Public service announcement: Frozen okra will thaw into a gooey mess but will not explode through freezer bags. I’m not sure why you need that information, but now you have it.

Hazmat was called but refused to respond. So, friends stepped in to do what friends must occasionally do. Once in a while, you gotta step up to the plate.

First, all windows were opened. They found of couple of fans in our house, then brought a couple more of their own to prop up in those windows.

This cancelled the plans of our immediate next-door neighbors to eat lunch out on their deck that day. While they are a good 30 yards away, the stench from our kitchen was uncontainable. Those folks had other options of where they could be, so they packed up and left.

Like I said, it’s a real special odor.

Neighbors from both sides of the house came with garbage bags, willing to help clean out the fridge. While tossing out our food, one of them tossed his own cookies. Fortunately, he managed to make it outside, hanging his head out over the deck railing before that happened.

Ten full garbage bags and $5 later, the offending mess was deposited in the local dump.

The same friend who had lost his lunch cleaning out the refrigerator was around when we finally arrived two days later, offering to help me move the refrigerator out of the house. To fortify ourselves, we both took a shot of tequila. (We do a fair amount of fortifying around here.)

During the process of rolling it out on a hand truck, one of the fridge doors popped open. His tequila shot left his body as quickly as it had entered.

We refortified.

Eventually, we were able to wheel the refrigerator into my neighbor's yard. The same neighbors that had left. Their yard. I used their hose, their water, to wash out meat juice and mold. Can't wait for them to return. Precious memories aren't the only things that linger.

The fridge made nice yard art, and we considered just leaving it there.

Back inside, my wife Beverly wiped down every counter and cabinet with all manner of cleaning solutions, going so far as to take down the curtains and wash them. Floors were mopped. Disinfectant was sprayed on the furniture. Plates, glasses, silverware, every pot and every pan got washed.

In tossing out all of the spoils of the refrigerator, the neighbors had left glass and canned items. Without much hesitation, we made the decision to toss everything that smehell had touched and start over.

Everything except the beer. It’s good beer, and the cans had not popped opened. I deemed them salvageable and safe.

Now, you could argue that beer which has been refrigerated, then brought back to room temperature, then refrigerated again will lose some flavor. You’d need to argue with someone else. My palate won’t notice, and I ain’t listening.

You could also argue, as my buddy did, beer cans that have been in such close proximity to the funk of rotting deer carcasses are contaminated and need to be replaced. But again, my ears don’t hear.

Those cans have taken a gentle bleach bath and are now chillin’ in a brand new refrigerator.

My friend has vowed not to accept my offer of a beer for the next year. Beverly has vowed that lips that touch those cans of beer will not touch hers for about the same period of time.

Don’t tell me I don’t know what it means to sacrifice.